1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to techniques for controlling a digital recording device, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for controlling a digital recording device via a digital data bus to enable sub-channel recording and playback.
2. Background Information
A digital data bus can be utilized for transmitting digital data in a network among digital devices, such as television signal receivers, personal computers (PCs), display devices, video cassette recorders (VCRs), digital versatile disk (DVD) players, direct broadcast satellite (DBS) receivers, home control devices (e.g., security systems, temperature control devices, etc.), and/or other devices. A digital data bus is typically compliant with a particular standard or specification. An example of a wired digital bus standard includes the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 1394 High Performance Serial Bus standard, which is well known in the art. Wireless digital bus-standards, such as Hiperlan2, are also known in the art.
When recording digital data to a digital recording device such as an audio/video hard disk drive (AVHDD), digital video cassette recorder (DVCR), or other digital recording device via a wired (e.g., IEEE-1394, Ethernet, etc.) and/or wireless (e.g., Hiperlan2, Wi-Fi, etc.) digital bus, some content may be of too high a bandwidth for the digital recording device to properly record all of the digital data. For example, certain digital data streams such as 256-Quadrature Amplitude Modulated (QAM) digital cable streams may include too much data for certain digital recording devices to properly record the entire digital data stream. In other words, the digital recording device may become essentially flooded with data, and therefore unable to properly record the entire digital data stream.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus, which avoids the foregoing problem, and is thereby capable of reducing the amount of data provided to a digital recording device. The present invention addresses these and/or other issues.